I thought I had seen it all in terms of grotesque lies from “ex-gay” activists.

But today, National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) and International Healing Foundation charlatan Christopher Doyle surprised me by launching the most cynical and dishonest “ex-gay” effort to date. Not only is he engaging in stealth evangelism of the most degrading and dehumanizing kind, he is targeting vulnerable LGBT youth with a special brand of quack-therapy. And he is concealing his true goal — converting these kids to heterosexuality through prayer and therapy.

On the Day of Silence, which is a campaign to counter anti-LGBT bullying, Doyle writes an insincere op-ed in the Christian Post, that makes him appear sympathetic to LGBT youth and an opponent of bullying. At the end of his trashy piece, he directs readers to a new website he created called Acception. According to Doyle:

Acception is a new groundbreaking, national campaign featuring a solutions-based educational film and classroom curriculum. Our mission is to help educators provide solutions to the nation’s bullying epidemic while empowering students to become change agents so they can step up and “Be A Hero” in their own schools to prevent bullying.

Wow, it sounds like this “ex-gay” culture warrior has turned over a new leaf.

That is until you read the copious “ex-gay” links on his ostensibly LGBT anti-bullying page. It takes you to a whose-who of the “ex-gay” industry’s mad men, where quacks routinely scar the minds of youth if their parents are willing to cough up the hefty fee for ineffective and detrimental therapy. The most cynical part, is that other parts of the site hide links to notorious “ex-gay” organizations in between good links of pro-gay groups that legitimately help youth. The result is that Doyle is assisting kids get into the clutches of discredited hucksters such as the International Healing Foundation’s Richard Cohen. Do loving parents really want their teenagers going to “therapy” with this clown? Because that is where Doyle is sending them.

To fool parents, educators, and youth, Doyle even has a slick new video. Stealing a page from Invisible Children, another stealth evangelical outfit, Doyle has an online store that sells a cool “Be a Hero” bracelet.

When a creep like this makes his living by exploiting children, he is the worst of the worst, the dregs of society and a stomach turning slime ball. Quite frankly, I prefer Fred Phelps, the Kansas preacher who holds up “God Hates Fags” signs. At least he is honest about where he is coming from and tells you exactly how he feels. It takes a special kind of snake, one with no morals or scruples, to lure kids who are getting beat up in school into “ex-gay” therapy by setting up a fake program that looks like a “safe space” but is instead a potentially life-destroying trap.

Make no mistake about it, Doyle is a committed, hardcore NARTH guy. In Nov. 2010, I joined Joe Jervis to protest the NARTH convention in Philadelphia. Joe took his camera and got right up in Doyle’s face, capturing this shot of him slithering away from the conference:

I am writing this blog post in the hopes that every LGBT organization that deals with youth will read it. Don’t be fooled by this bogus campaign and Trojan Horse website. Far from opposing school violence, Doyle’s work and that of his friends is significantly worse than school bullying — because they are adults who should know better. And the scars created by so-called reparative therapy can last a lifetime.

On a final note, this is not the first fake attempt of “ex-gay” therapists to rebrand themselves hoping to tap into new markets. Recently, Richard Cohen’s International Healing Foundation, which Doyle works with, also softened its rhetoric.

Don’t be foolish and buy their poison. Stay away at all costs. The techniques used by this unsavory crowd of self-loathing reprobates is harmful and outright dangerous.

About the Author

Wayne Besen is the Founding Executive Director of Truth Wins Out and author of “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth” (Haworth, 2003). In 2010, Besen was awarded the “Visionary Award” at the Out Music Awards for organizing the American Prayer Hour, an event which shined a spotlight on the role American evangelicals played in the introduction of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

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12 Comments

Don CraddockApril 20, 2012 at 3:45 pm -

Most schools do not allow hugging of the students, go away Richard you charlatan.

MichaelApril 20, 2012 at 3:47 pm -

Let’s not forget that kids that are forced into some of these programs by their parents are subjected to deprivation, beatings, and humiliation in an attempt to force an unnatural change on their psyches. These people are child abusers and should be jailed.

I was part of Exodus, the only worldwide evangelical ex-gay ministry for 22 years. I was also in therapy with those who promised a cure. I agree with Exodus removing all links to reparative therapy since, as they say bluntly, it does not work. Every medical association agrees. And for the past year Exodus leaders have been admitting that nobody ever changes from homosexual to heterosexual by any means. You can’t pray away the gay, talk away the gay in therapy or go to enough meetings to turn yourself straight.

when is Child Protection going to start to see this is child abuse? I am sick’n by these people and their so called “ex-gay” crap. There needs to be someone that looks like a kid and go in and film what they do at these camps. Charlatan’s are creepy and need to go away and steal someone eles’s money.

Richard RushApril 20, 2012 at 10:18 pm -

I’m still always amazed at how these losers developed their whole identities and careers around their deep denial of the reality that they are still homosexuals. During every moment of their “walk away from homosexuality,” they haven’t been able to stop thinking, talking, and obsessing about homosexuals. They are so obsessed that they are compelled to drag others into living lives as miserable as theirs.

Richard RushApril 20, 2012 at 10:27 pm -

Wyocowboy said, “When is Child Protection going to start to see this is child abuse?” Probably not anytime soon. When you operate under the protective umbrella of religion, you enjoy a vast array of special rights that allow you to engage in scams and fraud that are off limits for ordinary people.

Gary (NJ)April 21, 2012 at 9:25 am -

BTW, we had another gay teen suicide from bullying this week. I believe it was in Iowa. (Doyle looks like he just left the set of the tv show Fringe).

Paul DouglasApril 21, 2012 at 1:24 pm -

Let’s be honest. Most state Child Protective Services Departments are vastly underfunded and hopelessly understaffed. There are not enough people to keep up with the physical abusers let alone the mental ones. And as Richard said, religion gives a lot of blanket protection to very marginal parents. This is not a situation that is going to be easily solved. A cultural shift is probably the best hope for ending the ex-gay batshit, and that is slowly happening.

Paul McApril 23, 2012 at 8:44 am -

Very cynical. So much utterely fake sincereity wasted on drawing in vulnerable young people only to hit them with the fake story that he suddenely found himself straight overnight at 23.

Unless he had a stroke like the guy in the UK (the impact of which is impossible to verify).

Utterely fake and utterely deserted Facebook site.

Regan DuCasseApril 23, 2012 at 1:07 pm -

Very recently, a minister of a storefront church, and two of his cohorts were arrested on charges of serious abuse of a 13 year old. The child’s mother had asked these men to discipline her boy, but from the tone of it and the kid had no record of committing any misdemeanors or had a record of behavioral problems typical of deliquents, I’m suspecting his mother thought he was gay. What they did to this kid would traumatize a grown man who’d been a POW.
The story cycled out of the news, and it’s in another county, so harder to track.
But the brutality of it, is also typical of the brutality that gay kids are casually subjected to. It was WAY past what most boot camp recruits are trained to do.
Or even kids in scared straight jail house visits.

The Day of Silence was a serious commitment to the very distinct difference between anti gay bullying and general bullying.
And such anti gay articles that complain of Day of Silence, and try to advocate for Day of Dialogue is breath taking in their selfish portrayal of Christians being censored for ‘simply telling the truth’.
As if their defamation was a matter of mere opinion and they are entitled to express it anywhere, any time.

We cannot reiterate these distinctions of anti gay bullying.

1. A young person bullied for being fat, wearing glasses, unfashionable clothing or bad skin: isn’t likely to be abused by their parents, teachers or clergy as well.

2. A young person who is gay is at risk of similar treatment from the adults in their lives they depend on. Even law enforcement officers, or school administrators are not above sharing anti gay sentiment and are indifferent to the pain and suffering of a gay child.

3. Being fat, wearing glasses…etc, are traits commonly shared by family members, again reasonable proof a kid bullied for those issues will suffer at home for them as well.

4. And how many kids, again, with those issues, are at risk of being profoundly estranged from their parents, kicked out of their homes for having them? Even if a fat or socially awkward kid is abused at home, he’s more likely to fine alternative shelter at school and in a house of worship than a gay kid would.

And in all of this, young people and adults are actively taught to distrust and be hostile to gay people. It is virtually the only paranoia and profound misunderstanding that DOESN’T come naturally to anyone at large.
There are no distinctions made between moral sins, and religious sins.
Moral sins never change, and have always been a matter of how you treat another human being.
Religious sins have been accepted and evolved over time as human progress has dictated.

And apparently, there are too many anti gay, especially those who portray themselves as religiously influential, are proven morally bankrupt themselves for not teaching this.

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